


A Visit

by SatansDuck



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus is Snape's mentor and father figure but neither know it, Anyway we need more fics of Snape dealing with his mum's death, Attempted Suicide, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Less about his mum herself, Lily and Poppy are very brief and minor characters, Murder, Poison, Suicide Attempt, This is more about Severus and his relationship with his mum, Trauma, character death is off screen, depression Snape, read them, seriously trigger warnings in tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13500658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatansDuck/pseuds/SatansDuck
Summary: After the first war, Severus is devoured by guilt, lonlieness, his own depression, and the mind numbing feeling of doing the same things every day. He decides to end it.TRIGGER WARNINGS IN TAGS: SUICIDE ATTEMPT, DEPRESSION, MURDER, LOSSThe only character death are Eileen and Lily.





	A Visit

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not kidding read the trigger warnings. It's not graphic but even so - take care of yourself.  
> Anyway, I always think about how the people I've lost think of me now. I wonder if Severus thinks that way about Lily, his past enemies, or even his parents.

Severus sat up in his bed, awake and anxious. He gazed around and found the source of his anxiety very quickly – he had no bloody idea where he was. The young man got up and turned, watching as the bed slowly faded out of existence. The only thing around him was white, and he couldn’t see a thing beyond it. No life, no items, no sound. Nothing. He was in a world of nothing.

As he walked, he wondered about how he had gotten there. What did he remember last? He thought before feeling himself darken with the reality of his memories – right. He had poisoned himself. The Dark Lord had died – though not for long, Albus had told him – and Lily was dead. He had been cleared but only barely, and everybody at the school was suspicious of him. That last fact shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did. He felt wrong speaking to any of his colleagues and he had cut contact with most everybody to the largest extent he could. He still received invitations from the Malfoys and whatnot every now and then but he went sparingly – always giving what excuses he could. Not for the first time in his life, he felt truly and utterly alone. But with the mind-numbing job that he deeply despised, staying in the school that seemed to remind him of terrible things every day, and doing nothing but getting angry at idiotic children and brewing every single day made it all so much more unbearable. His life – he realized – had finally lost what little meaning it ever held. It was worth nothing – he was worth nothing.

So he wandered, endlessly and forever. The white went on and on, he wondered if death was just nothing but eternal silence. An eternity alone did not seem much better to him than his life had been. After an unknown amount of time, his eyes – accustomed to seeing nothing but white – quickly picked out a faint silhouette in the distance. It was a dark figure who seemed to be wearing a dress, without thinking he set a course for them. As soon as he got close enough to pick out a few more details, he stopped dead in his tracks. He nearly turned right around and ran the other way, because he knew nobody would see him do it. He stayed in that position for what seemed like hours - though he know it couldn’t have been - trying to decide what to do, where to go. He took a few hesitant steps forward, halted, then continued inching toward them. When he was just a few feet away from the figure, they turned around.

She looked so much more peaceful than she had in life. To his memory, her smile was always strained and weighed down by the burdens of her marriage, of trying to keep their family together and to feed them all with the little money they had. Her black hair wasn’t matted anymore but now looked refreshingly clean, her dress still had the patches it always had but now it looked washed, and her shoes looked good as new. Her face seemed cleaner too, her cheekbones were still prominent but her face had filled out, as if she was now well fed. Her eyes – they were still so much like the dark tunnels they always were and yet they sparkled with something he had never seen in them – life. 

“Severus.” She gave him a small smile, but didn’t seem up to anything greater. Her smile faded and she looked at him something that, surprisingly, made his throat catch and his eyes water. “I know what you’ve done, and... I’m disappointed.” A pause. “You could be so much better, so much greater. I saw you grow and I knew you could be someone amazing.” She locked eyes with him and to his horror he felt like he would suddenly start sobbing. “You can still do so many great things though. I know you can.” He swallowed hard. “Mum, I- “His throat closed up, the emotion behind the title being too great. He never thought he would call somebody that again. He swallowed and blinked hard, suddenly worried he would be brought back to life or she would disappear at any minute. “I’m sorry.” An unsteady breath. “So sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing and I regret it all so fucking much” He was mildly surprised he had cursed but he had a bigger problem with keeping his voice steady and his eyes dry. “I know sweetie. And I am proud that you tried to fix things.” And she opened her arms and suddenly he was there, leaning into her and gripping her clothes and crying like a child who was too afraid of the dark. 

And he couldn’t stop. He was barely aware of the broken sentences he was muttering and yelling, only aware of the arms holding him firmly and the hands rubbing circles into his back, of the face nestled protectively by his head and murmuring comforting words into his ear. All he could think about was the dead victims of death eaters, the spying, the Dark Lord’s suspicions, the cold loneliness and nauseating memories of Hogwarts, the dead body of his ex-best friend in his arms, the pitying look in Albus’ eyes every time he looked at him, his broken friendship with Lucius and Narcissa. And then, flashing before his eyes, the memory. The memory of him walking into a room and his mother on the floor, blood dripping from her mouth and neck unnaturally twisted and bent as his father cowered in the corner, muttering and twitching. “No- I never meant to! She isn’t- “Him not knowing what to do. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he calmed down. His breathing went from harsh to unsteady and his eyes slightly dried while his cheeks were still wet. The storm that had been raging inside his chest and head was gone. He felt empty and chaotic and almost peaceful. Everything happened, it all happened without him being able to stop it. He tried, anyway. “What more could you have done?” His mother echoed his thoughts, and he didn’t really mind the invasion of privacy. He was okay with that, for once. She squeezed him once more, hard. “I love you. And I know you can do it.”

Then he woke up.

By the time Poppy checked on him, he had been awake for an hour or so, thinking. When she told him to sit up and drink his potions, he didn’t object. He drank the potions, nearly obedient, and settled back in. Unsurprisingly, Poppy had laced it, and he fell asleep soon after. 

The next time he woke up, Albus was next to his bed, in a chair. He looked over and they locked eyes. To his surprise, Albus teared up. “My boy, I’m so sorry.” Severus was silent for a minute, thinking, and he responded quietly, mildly surprised at his own sincerity. “It’ll be okay.”


End file.
